Flint and Silver. John Drake

      What Springer was doing was bad and despicably stupid.

      But one after another the five men were stripped, triced up and given two dozen – including Ben Gunn, despite growls of anger from the crew, to which Springer responded by ordering his marines to level their muskets at the hands. This was utter madness, and even the marines were groaning as the cat fell, stroke after stroke, on Ben Gunn’s skinny back. When he was taken down, the poor creature was no longer the same man, for his pride was broken and his mind was wounded far worse than his body.

      To say, therefore, that Elizabeth was an unhappy ship would be a very masterpiece of understatement. The mood of the ship’s people was even worse than it had been under Flint; then, at least there had been moments of laughter. Everything that later happened on the island stemmed directly from Captain Springer’s staggering failure of leadership. An explosion was now inevitable. But for a few weeks the disease festered under the skin and no eruptions were visible. This was thanks to the urgent need for action to get the ship afloat again.

      First, Springer tried to warp her off. In theory this was a simple task which involved passing a hawser ashore to be made fast to a strongpoint such as a mighty tree. The hawser would then be bent to the capstan and all hands would heave the capstan bars around to haul the ship off the sandbank.

      In practice, the effort failed. Despite the disciplined effort of teams of men passing the line ashore in the launch, sweltering their way along the shoreline to find a suitable tree, and despite the combined strength of every man aboard, pushing their hearts out on the capstan bars, Elizabeth never budged. Springer had brought her in at the flood of the high tide, such that there’d never be another inch of water to be had under her keel to lift her off. In fact, each time the tide went out, she appeared to settle in deeper. So each high tide, Springer tried another trick, each more desperate that the last, each seeking to give the capstan a better chance to pull the ship clear.

      “Give a broadside, double-shotted, to shake her off, Mr Flint!” cried Springer. “That’ll break the suction.” So the island echoed to the boom of Elizabeth’s guns. But the ship never moved. “I’ll lighten her, Mr Flint,” said Springer. “Strike all topmasts! All boats out of the ship, and all spare sails and spars.” That failed too. “Guns and carriages ashore, Mr Flint,” said Springer wearily on the fourth day. “And all stores out of the hold. Everything that ain’t scarfed and bolted into the hull.” But, despite the enormous labour, Elizabeth – now more hulk than ship – simply wedged herself deeper into the sand.

      As the boatswain’s pipe delivered the final call of “ ‘Vast hauling” and a hundred sweat-drenched men collapsed at the capstan, Springer chewed his knuckles in despair. Around him his officers were glaring at him in open contempt and the men were seething with hatred for Springer, and with fear at the prospect of being unable to get off the island. The crew were exhausted. The ship was gutted. Ashore lay a vast pile of ship’s stores: arms and artillery, food and drink, clothing and tools, all under a miniature town of spar-and-canvas tents above the tide-line. And in the midst of it all Captain Springer was helpless, hopeless, guilty and angry. For the first time in his career, he did not know what to do.

      And so, Lieutenant Flint, who’d watched incredulous as his captain dug himself into the pit, saw that his moment had come. Thanks to Springer’s disgraceful behaviour certain wicked temptations had been laid before Lieutenant Flint, which even he fought off at first, but when they came knocking at his door, grinning and winking, day after day after day … Well, finally he gave up the fight and embraced them.

      “May I speak, sir?” said he, all humble and respectful.

      “Damn your eyes, you evil sod,” said Springer, “this is all your doing.”

      “Aye-aye, sir,” said Flint, ignoring the words, which in truth had no meaning anyway. Springer wasn’t even looking at him.

      “I have a suggestion, sir,” said Flint.

      “Bollocks!” said Springer.

      “Aye-aye, sir,” said Flint. “But we can make Portsmouth yet, sir, and do our duty to the Commodore.”

      “What?” said Springer, beginning to take notice. “Can’t you see it’s hopeless, you prick-louse?” Springer gestured at the ship. “She’ll never come free. Can’t you see that, you slimy sod?”

      “Indeed, sir,” said Flint, “the ship is lost. But we can build another from her timbers. We have all the tools and the necessary skills. We could easily build a vessel capable of reaching Jamaica, let alone the Spanish Americas.”

      Springer gaped at Flint, consumed with relief … and then with envy and hatred. Why hadn’t he thought of that? It was bloody obvious once it was pointed out.

      “I further suggest, sir,” said Flint, “that you might consider bringing the men together at once to announce your decision, and that you might further consider the issue of double grog to all hands in respect of their exceptional labours.”

      Billy Bones, standing as ever in Flint’s shadow, grinned to himself. He’d make sure everyone knew whose idea it was to get them back home.

      “You back-stabbing bastard!” said Springer bitterly, and he glared at Flint. “It’s all you, you sod. It’s a plot!”

      “Indeed not, sir,” said Flint, and permitted himself the hint of a sneer, for although there had been no plot before, there was one a-hatching now.

      But Springer had no option other than to make the best of it. He had all hands piped to the quarterdeck rail, then he made his speech and ordered double grog. They cheered him for that, knowing there was a way home tomorrow and a roaring debauch tonight. Double grog meant a full pint of strong Navy rum per man, and even sailors got drunk on that.

      For the next two days, Springer’s crew were the happiest tars in the service, since on the first day they were mainly unconscious and on the second they were recovering in a warm bliss of recollection. On the third day, Flint, Billy Bones and the boatswain’s crew set them to work with the aid of rope ends knotted tight and soaked in salt water to give a good whack. The crew had had their fun, and now it was time to put the captain’s (that is to say, Lieutenant Flint’s) plan into operation.

      The carpenter and his mates set about erecting a small shipyard ashore and hacking planks and timbers out of the ship herself. Another team, under the gunner and his mates, erected sheer-legs, block and tackle, and with the steady labour of twenty chanting seamen, dragged cannon bodily up to the cliff-tops at the mouth of the inlet, and established batteries to command the sea approaches.

      At the same time, half the marines under one of the midshipmen began exploring the island to determine whether any danger lay at their backs. The other half, under Sergeant Dawson, deployed on the outskirts of the shore-works, in open order with ball cartridge loaded, to give warning of any attack.

      Meanwhile, the cook and his mates served up victuals, the cooper filled the ship’s butts with fresh water, the surgeon drew splinters and sewed up cuts, the sailmaker cut up Elizabeth’s sails and re-sewed them according to the new pattern designed by Lieutenant Flint, and the boatswain’s crew steadily stripped the rigging and fittings out of the ship, and set up a store tent ashore. And just to keep them busy, those men not already employed were sent out in a boat, rigged for sail, with another midshipman in command, to take bearings around the entire island, and to take soundings besides. This would enable a proper map to be made.

      The true master of all these works was, of course, Lieutenant Flint, who excelled himself in the efficiency with which he flogged the men to it, and in the ingenious punishments devised for those who incurred his displeasure.

      “Three days without water for you, my chicken,” for a boatswain’s mate who’d smashed his toes with a dropped roundshot, which Flint interpreted as malingering.

      “The one to lash the other, by turns,” he pronounced on two seamen who’d dropped a compass out of a boat in twenty fathoms. “And to continue until one or the other drops,” he smiled. “So lay on, my